Nathaniel Lardner

1684-1768. Nonconformist* scholar. Educated at Deal, Hoxton Academy, Utrecht, and Leyden, Lardner was both an Independent minister and a domestic chaplain between 1709 and 1729, and assistant preacher at a Presbyterian chapel from 1729 to 1751. He was a nonsubscriber in the Salter's Hall controversy of 1719. His theological opinions developed from Baxterian Calvinism through Arminianism to a modified Arianism. Between 1727 and 1757 he published his remarkable Credibility of the Gospel History in which with disarming candor and immense learning he strove to defend the facts of the NT against Deist critics; in effect by detaching the OT from the New and developing novel ideas concerning the Logos* he was unconsciously adopting the rational methods of the Socinians and was responsible for Joseph Priestley's conversion to that system. Lardner's works were translated into several languages and were three times reprinted.